Big Plans for Bath Parks in 2013

Bath Township is hoping to start restoring a tamarack bog -- one of only a handful in the area -- this year. 

"I think this will be the coolest restoration we've ever done," Park Director Mike Rorar said.

The bog in the Nature Preserve is one of several projects outlined in Rorar's annual State of the Parks address.

Other projects ahead in 2013:

• Replacing a pickup truck.

• Improving drainage on Field 4 at the Baseball Park.

• Continuing to work on two flood plain restoration projects, including the Garden Bowl, which sits in the Bath Nature Preserve near the University of Akron Field House. The township is restoring the area to its original wetlands condition to create a natural retention basin and a habitat for water plants and wildlife.

• Starting -- possibly -- an observation and fishing deck at Bath Pond. Rorar said the project was slated for last year, but a federal grant that was to pay half the cost has been delayed.

Rorar also noted that most of the 2012 projects, including dugout enclosures on Fields 2 and 3 at the Baseball Park, paving part of the walkway to those fields, and improving the South Woods Nature Trail, were finished are are under way. 

Bog Details

With only a handful of bogs like it in Ohio, Rorar is excited to begin restoring Bath's to its natural state.

Bogs were formed when glaciers retreated, leaving holes that became giant peat deposits. 

Bath's tamarack bog went awry when people tried to drain the area, which allowed red maples and other tall vegetation to move in. That blocks the sunlight from hitting the water, with disrupts the eco-balance.

"You don't want red maples," Rorar said. "There's nothing shady in a blog."

The only trees should be tamaracks, which are sparse and shed their needles in the fall.

So he wants to restore the hydrology by plugging up the swales and removing the trees and plants that don't belong.

Then nature will take its course and bog plants, like carniverous sundew and pitcher plants, will return.

"Supposedly, all those seeds are in there, just waiting for the sun to hit them again," Rorar said.